by Naima Simone
Chapter Eleven
Aiden slipped the end of his tie through the loop at his neck, pulling the end through and tightening the knot. Since his own father had always been MIA, his eleventh-grade English teacher had taught him and Lucas how to put on a tie. Then, the process had been awkward, but now it was almost muscle memory. Good thing, because other matters besides the perfect, straight knot occupied his mind. Matters like Noelle. And the sex two nights earlier that had damn near left him blind, deaf, and dumb.
Damn. He smoothed a palm down the light blue-and-black silk and turned to grab his jacket off his bed.
A virgin. Noelle had been a virgin. He would’ve never guessed the exotic, independent, slightly wild pixie with the mural inked into her skin would be untouched. When she’d confessed the truth to him, he’d been taken aback by the lust and…possessiveness that had roared through him. Had it rendered him a caveman in that moment? Probably. But he owned it, couldn’t deny it. Knowing no man had ever given her pleasure—had been inside her—had caused a primal urge to rise up in him. An urge to take, to brand her with his mouth, his hands, his body. Imprint himself on her so thoroughly that she would never forget who introduced her to hunger, to ecstasy. That’s when he’d discovered that underneath the elegant, sophisticated suit existed a man who only pretended to be civilized.
She’d done that to him. And making her come on his fingers and with his mouth, pushing into a pussy that had been two sizes too small and utterly perfect, had sealed his fate. Stolen his mind. So now all he could think about was returning to that smooth, wet, tight haven.
“I wasn’t saving myself for marriage or ‘the right man’ to come along. Don’t worry. I’m not going to start envisioning picket fences or two-point-five kids.”
At first, lying there with the sweat barely dry on his skin, the scent of her sweet flesh still clinging to him, her flippant words had angered him. But under the anger, anxiety had lurked. The kind of anxiety that raked at the skin and heralded a panicked bout of claustrophobia. Like the sheet tangled around his hips and legs bound him tight, restricted him.
In the past, sex had been fun, not a prelude to a commitment. But he couldn’t indulge in a no-strings affair with Noelle. Their…history wouldn’t allow it. Too much tied them together—their past, their families, the promise that had brought her here to Boston. The overwhelming guilt he couldn’t separate from her. Not to mention her attachment and involvement with a man who had decimated his life and stolen the future he’d once held within his grasp. Hell yes. Complicating an already complicated relationship was madness.
And then there was him… He wasn’t any woman’s idea of a happily ever after.
He was incapable of having and maintaining a relationship. Because a commitment required trust; it required unconditional belief in a person. It required risk. And he couldn’t give that to a woman. Not after Peyton. His willingness to blame Noelle for her father’s theft was evidence enough of that.
And yet…all he could think about was sucking on Noelle’s pink nipples and watching them darken from his mouth and tongue. Eating his fill from her pussy and teasing the delicate button of her clit. Burying his cock inside her and having her flutter around his flesh, milking him dry.
That need—the ravenous hunger—had incited the flash of panic in her bedroom. Because even as his mind acknowledged they couldn’t do this again, his dick twitched and jerked in anticipation of the next time. Hoping “the next time” was less than two minutes away.
Clenching his teeth, he snatched up his suit jacket and shrugged into it. In the past couple of days, he’d kept his johnson in his pants and his hands off, and they were back to avoiding one another like before. Unlike before, though, now he knew the mind-numbing pleasure to be found in her bed. Smelled her unique scent on his skin no matter how many times he showered…
“Fucking ridiculous,” he muttered and glanced down at his watch. Seven o’clock. He had thirty minutes to arrive at Jocelyn’s Beacon Hill townhouse to pick her up for their date. After he’d called her as promised, they planned to meet and discuss the trip to Los Angeles that she’d won in the auction.
Almost three weeks ago, he would’ve been excited to spend two days and a night in California with a beautiful woman. Now, his body rebelled at the thought of touching another woman whose skin wasn’t covered in flowers, birds, and bows. After tracing the artistic beauty with his fingers and lips, all other women seemed bland, boring in comparison.
He shook his head, hard, as if he could jog that last observation free. Get it together, damn it. Sneering at himself, he exited the penthouse. Now he had twenty-eight minutes to make it across town.
Seventeen minutes later, he stood on a South End sidewalk outside King Gallery.
Idiot. He was a goddamn idiot.
He should be nearing Jocelyn’s home, not staring into the front window of Noelle’s workplace. What was he doing here? What was his endgame? To walk in there, demand she look at him, talk to him. Let him part those lush, pink lips and thrust his tongue in?
Exhaling a long, hard breath, he ran his fingers through his hair. Not twenty minutes ago, he’d acknowledged nothing could come of them having sex. That maintaining space and distance during the remainder of the time she spent in his home was the best idea. The right thing to do. For her and for him. Yet, here he waited to do…to do what? Convince her to come back to the penthouse so he could get lost in her again?
Again, he berated himself, calling himself about ten kinds of asshole, but he still pulled open the gallery door and entered.
And drew to a halt.
Noelle stood beside a white, freestanding wall where a photograph of a woman standing on the ledge of a roof offered a dramatic backdrop. An appropriate backdrop. Because as he stared at Noelle smiling and laughing up at a tall, suited man, her hand resting on his arm, Aiden identified with that woman on the ledge.
Part of him demanded he turn around and exit the gallery. The other half snarled and snapped, demanding he cross the gleaming hardwood floor and snatch her hand off the other man. He wanted to claim her smiles and the laughter she so sparsely gave him. The need to stalk over there and place his lips on the sweetly scented crook of her neck so the asshole she talked with would know she was his rode him like a horse jockey. The longing to then usher her to one of the back rooms, push her black skirt up around her waist and her panties down her legs, and plunge into her tight, hot, welcoming heat made him fist his hands, his palm itching to shape her soft but firm flesh… His ears ringing to hear that telltale catch in her breath as he tunneled deeper, and deeper still…
The. Fuck.
The dark, roiling desire to surrender to the possessive urge whipped through him, across him. With barely leashed control, he sharply pivoted and shoved out of the gallery. The brisk November-evening wind lashed at him, tugging on his hair and the lapels of his coat as if imploring him to turn around and return to the gallery. Return to claim Noelle.
Damn that. He’d been a fool to come down here. His asshole quota for the night had been met. Pressing the key fob, he unlocked the doors to his car with a muted beep and flash of the lights. He rounded the trunk of his car and grabbed the handle of the driver’s-side door.
“Aiden.” A hand appeared on the sleeve of his coat, and the image of that hand on another man flashed in front of him. As did that unwanted, resented possessiveness. He didn’t do possessive.
Not until now.
Spinning, he encircled Noelle’s wrist and pulled her out of the road and back onto the sidewalk, where the traffic whizzing by had no chance of hurting her.
Go back inside. I don’t want you. Forget I was here.
The words streamed up his throat and hovered on the edge of his tongue. But when he parted his lips, he crushed them over hers, immediately taking advantage of her surprise. He backed her up against the side of his car, swallowing her gasp and tangling his tongue around hers, demanding—pleading—that she spar with him. The relief th
at poured through him when she tilted her head back and opened wider to him shouldn’t have been as strong…as important. Pushing it to the back of his mind, he groaned and fucked her mouth. Sucked it, thrust inside it, worshipped it. Christ, he couldn’t get enough. Cupping her face, he angled her head how he wanted, needed, for a greedier, wilder exploration.
Not that Noelle let herself be conquered. Hell no. She might have been a virgin up until two nights ago, but she kissed like a seductress. With every lick, stroke, and moan she locked another chain of lust around him, fettering him to her.
“I’m not going to lie,” he growled against her mouth. “I had no intention of showing up here tonight. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Nothing can come of it. But here I am. And when I saw you smiling up at that asshole…” He paused, nipped at the slightly fuller bottom lip. “I wanted to break him in two for receiving what I want from you for myself.”
“Aiden, he’s a buyer. Nothing else,” she murmured, cuffing his wrists. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
He shook his head, pressed a hard kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You don’t think I know that? But it doesn’t matter. Because even if he was the damn pope or you were shaking his hand with gloves and a fucking hazmat suit on… I hated it. I hated that it wasn’t me when all I can think about is having you under me, over me, bent over in front of me. I go to bed and have to force myself to stay there instead of going down the hall to your room and climbing in next to you.”
Slowly, she lowered his hands from her face and shifted back a step. “And you can’t stand that, can you? Can’t stand that you want me?”
“No,” he admitted, his voice low and fierce. “Part of me wishes you were nameless, faceless. That after being inside you I could walk away and forget you. It would be easier, simpler. But then there’s the part that can still feel you squeezing my cock. That can’t forget how you look as you come. That can still smell your scent on my skin no matter how hard I try to scrub it off. That part doesn’t give a damn about anything but getting inside you again.”
“How romantic,” she murmured, a half smile curving one half of her lush mouth. But her eyes remained dark, shuttered. “No wonder women fall all over themselves to be with you.”
“The truth. And here’s more of it.” Moving forward, he eliminated the space she’d placed between them. He burrowed his fingers through her hair and pressed his forehead to hers, briefly closing his eyes. Relief, regret, disgust, and desire—that ever-present, never-satisfied desire—swirled inside him like a cyclone bent on destruction. His. Hers. None of it was black and white. Not anymore. Hell, it hadn’t been since that November night he’d shown up at that party. “Romance requires thinking, planning, control. I’m not capable of that when I’m around you.”
He shouldn’t have her. As long as he stayed away from her, she was his penance, his act of contrition… But he was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of being alone. Tired of aching. He wanted her…needed her. The only defense he had left was the truth, acknowledging that this—whatever this was between them—was temporary. Because an expiration date loomed over their heads like Damocles’s sword. Her apartment would be ready in another week or so, and they would go their separate ways and return to the lives they’d had before a promise and a leak in an old woman’s apartment had brought them together.
That phone call from Tony on Monday… Fury streaked through Aiden before he could stifle it. Hearing her brother’s smug, arrogant voice had brought all the pain, grief, and helplessness back on a tidal wave that had damn near submerged him. The urge to rip Tony apart with his bare hands had strangled Aiden. That easily, the riptide of emotion had taken him under.
That had been a phone call. If he and Noelle were together, what would happen when she insisted on her brother visiting or on her returning to Chicago to see him? The bitterness and resentment would turn to hate—for her. Aiden had moved thousands of miles to Boston, but Noelle’s presence and the echoes of the past that had come with her were proof positive he hadn’t let go. He hadn’t let bygones be bygones. He hadn’t forgiven. And he doubted he would ever be able to.
Still…that knowledge did nothing for the ravenous arousal that knotted his gut, swelled his cock. He could have right now—they could have each other for right now. And the greedy bastard that he was, he intended to take it.
“Come home with me,” he said, tangling his fingers in her thick, raven hair and tilting her head back. He stared down into her bright eyes. “I can’t…” His grip tightened on the dark strands. “I’ll never lie to you, Noelle. I’m not a good bet. You deserve more than I’m offering. But I want you. For one night. Two. Three. And I’m enough of a selfish bastard to ask you to say yes. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Silently, he willed her to understand, to agree. Because if she didn’t, he would walk away from her, but goddamn, it would hurt like hell.
Noelle studied him, her expression sober, revealing nothing. He waited, determined not to pressure her, needing her to come to him of her own free will.
After a long moment, she slowly nodded. “Okay,” she whispered.
The satisfaction that crashed through him should have seemed disproportionate to the one word.
But not when that one word meant he could taste her again, touch her again, have her again. For however long they had.
No, that one word was everything.
Chapter Twelve
Aiden opened the door to his home, stepping back and allowing Noelle to precede him. As she passed him, he inhaled her light, floral scent. The scent that thickened, deepened when sweat dotted her body. If he were in a perfume shop with every jar open, their fragrances drifting into the air, he would still be able to identify hers. It was pretty, delicate, strong. Her.
His eyes fixed on her, he closed the front door behind him. At the sound of the lock engaging, she spun around. They stood there, staring at one another, the quiet humming with the tension between them. He couldn’t stop staring at her. At the tumble of black waves that draped over her shoulders like an obsidian cape. At the wide blue eyes that, at turns, could gleam with innocence or burn with passion. At the wide, plump curves of her mouth that stirred images of those lips on his skin, around his cock. At the petite, slender body currently hidden by her winter coat but emblazoned on his mind.
Had any other woman ever ignited this blaze inside him? Had he ever possessed this clawing desire that insisted if he didn’t get inside her he wouldn’t be the same? Had he ever felt this urge, this instinct to take, but give so much more in return?
He sidestepped the thought with the agility of a pro athlete.
Focus on the here. The now. The sex. The need. Not tomorrow, not the future. Hell, not hours from this moment.
With those instructions ringing in his ears, he advanced on her. Hunger beat at him. Insisted he grab her, press her against the nearest wall, and rock into the wet heat waiting for him. But instead, he cupped her face, stroked his thumbs across those ridiculously high and feminine cheekbones, and brushed his lips over hers. She—her strength wrapped in fragility, her passion layered with innocence, her artist heart, and her creative spirit—she tempered the fierce need.
He slid his hands down her neck to her shoulders. For a long second he stared at his hands circling her slender throat. His thumbs pressed into the shallow bowl at the top of her collarbone, his fingers meeting at her nape. Slowly, he rubbed the front of her throat, massaging it, feeling every swallow. He lifted his gaze to hers but found her thick lashes lowered, hiding her eyes from him.
“Are you nervous?” he murmured.
She nodded. “Yes. A little.”
“Why?” He lowered his hands and unbuttoned her coat, then slid the garment down her shoulders and arms.
She shrugged one shoulder, still avoiding his regard. “This feels…different.”
She said the last word so softly, he almost didn’t catch it. But he did. And analyzed it. This time wasn’t the sa
me. Monday night, it’d been one of those carried-away moments. But now, they were both going into sex with their eyes wide open, a decision consciously made. Aware of the consequences.
Of the limitations. Different.
“Look at me,” he said and waited until her lashes lifted. “At any time you decide this is over—that you don’t want this—it’s over. Understand?”
Again, she nodded. “Not tonight.” Mimicking his actions, she unbuttoned his coat and removed it, the wool clothing joining hers on the floor. Her palms flattened over his abdomen, and the muscles contracted under her touch. He felt the touch, as innocuous as it was, in his dick. She slid her hands up his stomach, pausing on his chest. “Can I?” she asked, her fingers hovering over his tie.
“Anything you want from me, you can have, sweetheart. Just take it. You don’t have to ask.” Arousal mixed with tenderness twisted in his gut, but to punctuate his statement, he dropped his arms to his sides, offering her free, unhindered access to him. The irony didn’t escape him. Three weeks ago, he hadn’t wanted her in Boston, had preferred to go on living as if she didn’t exist. Now, he stood in his foyer telling her she could have him.
Hell, he needed her to take him.
With a sigh, she quickly loosened the tie, and before it hit the floor, her fingers were busy on his shirt. Unable to not touch her another second, he grasped a large, thick lock of her hair and clenched it, wrapped it around his fist. He noted the flutter of her lashes and the small blast of air that burst past her lips. Intrigued, he tugged a little harder, and her fingers fumbled on the buttons.
Just like he remembered. She liked when he pulled on her hair, was a little rough. The knowledge hardened his body, sent blood thundering through his veins and throbbing in his dick. Noelle might look like a delicate pixie, but she wasn’t frail. More like a decorative sword. Beautiful and jeweled, but forged in steel. She could take everything he longed to give her. And probably dish it out in return.